It's been primarily a lot of non-fiction so far this summer, Joe,
Finished:
1493 by Charles Mann. Wonderful sequel to his 1491. How the events of 1492 reshaped (and continue to reshape) our world.
Hamilton by Ron Chernow - I really enjoyed his Washington and I liked this even more. Gave me a depth of understanding of just how fragile our style of government really was/is. Like his previous book, it's a long read. Best taken in small chunks.
A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates. My sister's husband died suddenly last year at age 59. This has helped me understand her behavior a bit. Like the aforementioned Hamilton, best taken in small doses - Oates it a powerful writer and her anguish sweeps off the pages.
"There are Things I Want You to Know About Stieg Larsson and Me" by Eva Gabrielsson. Not very well-written, but I keep hearing rumors about this and that with regard to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and sequels, so it was worth the read. If you don't care about The Millennium Trilogy, you can easily pass. Lots about the author, Larsson and Swedish society.
A Cartoonist's Life: Charles Addams by Linda H. Davis. I may have already mentioned this, but I found it curiously unsatisfying. It was filled with great details and lots of stuff about him I didn't know, but there seems to have been a challenging aspect to his personality that should have been explained or at least given more speculation.
(Far more fun was the Complete Playboy Gahan Wilson with its articles and interview and a surprising amount of Wilson's writings: short stories, primarily. Three volumes and a laugh a minute.)
Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch - you have to be interested in Michelin-rated restaurants, which I am. I enjoyed the heck out of it, though it's really pretty light fare.
The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card - I liked it, but it seemed hastily finished. I kept looking at how many pages were left and how much needed to be wrapped up and was CERTAIN that it was going to turn out to be the first in a (dreaded) SERIES. Not so, but it could have benefited from a bit more effort at the end.
Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex - I think that the older AF grows, the less interesting are his adventures. My final encounter, I think.
Reiterating recommendations for: The Greater Journey by David McCullough (I have his 1776 on my stack to be read), and the various Malcolm Gladwell books: Outliers, The Tipping Point, Blink and What The Dog Saw.
As for the ending of Her Fearful Symmetry - I believe that it's a congenital problem with "supernatural" stories. Once you get to the part where it needs to be EXPLAINED, it all falls down. As long as it's a "mystery", we buy it. When it becomes a "reality", we lose interest.
In process (aka: now reading)
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, who writes non-fiction in a fiction-like style. Like his The Devil in the White City, this is based on journals and newspaper reports and diaries of the participants. They being, this time, the American Ambassador to Germany in 1933/34 and his family. Chilling, so far, as our State Department seems to have been populated with "old boys" who were only interested in getting Germany to pay its WW1 debts, not what Hitler was doing.
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bagigalupi (author of The Windup Girl). Collection of short stories which, so far, are compelling and intriguing, but the form is not his forte. So far (about four stories into it), I'm feeling like the melieus are fascinating, but the actual content of the story is unsatisfying.
Paris From the Ground Up by James H.S. McGregor - just what it says, a history of Paris from the pre-Roman days.
I'll be doing a lot of reading while in Paris. I always do. So it behooves me to pile up a slew of paperbacks to cart along. I'll keep you posted.
Love Hillerman and Connelly. I eventually gave up on Parker, though. Haven't read anything new by him in a dozen years. Used to POUNCE on the new releases.
Keep reading and keep sharing.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
